"The trouble with these sell-your-soul movies..."

"...is that they're always so theologically unsound."

Although it was the least of Ghost Rider's problems, I kept saying, "For Pete's sake, haven't the characters read Faust?"

I've been reading History of the Kings of Britain, and got to the older version of the King Lear story. The storyline is almost exactly like it is in the play, and then all of a sudden, Shakespeare completely changed the ending. I don't think there were Elizabethan fanboys, but I'm sitting here going, hey, why'd he do that? In Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cordelia's army defeats her sisters', and she rules Britain for decades. I'm so used to the tragedy that it's hard to wrap my brain around.

And speaking of Cordelias, I wonder if there's a support group for people addicted to episode guides. I just picked up a Buffy guide called Dusted, and now the Angel companion volume is on its way. I think I get bored with my own analyses, and want some opinions to agree or disagree with.

Same with all this slasher scholarship I've been into. Like, I didn't even think a movie like The Dorm That Dripped Blood was worth watching. But it's still worth thinking about. Then I start going, hmmm, maybe it wasn't so bad, and I should give it another chance. Once I've watched the hundred other movies on my Netflix list.

So this movie, Going to Pieces: the Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, was pretty interesting, if not quite as socio-political as The American Nightmare. And they used the phrase "genre purist," and it made me think, I've heard that phrase before. But what does that mean, exactly? How can you be a "purist" about slasher movies? For the record, the original Halloween is probably my favorite film in the genre, although the first Friday the 13th contains probably my favorite line of dialogue. I mean, "purely and simply...EEE-villle" is a great line, but it can't top "It's got a death curse!"

And a little horror bonus, courtesy of the IMDB. So, it turns out that the girl who's playing Laurie Strode in the Halloween remake is also starring in a remake of April freakin' Fool's Day. I mentioned this to my honey, and he asked, "Are they remaking Prom Night and Terror Train?" Ummmm...yes, and yes. Things are getting out of hand when they have to remake things that were utterly derivative to begin with. And I'm saying that as someone who actually liked all of those movies! But nobody can say there's anything really original about their storylines (April Fool's Day excepted).

But so far it looks like at least Hell Night is sacred....